January 30, 2015

We don't do God

editor:	Ama Lorenz

Against the backdrop of the worldwide Islam discussions, the sentence “We don’t do God”, once said by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of strategy and communications at that time, seams to get a new perspective. Just recent Alexis Tsipras became the first Greek prime minister to be sworn in without taking a religious oath, as he is an atheist and the Swiss media are discussing the relation of the Bundesrat to God. Reason enough for Kabir Chibber and Jason Karaian from the QUARTZ magazine to have a look at the religious beliefs of Europe’s leaders - including the atheists and to pin them in a map of Europe, ranging them from “Atheist” to “It is complicated”.

In times when there is a strict separation of church and state in some European countries and people feel threatened by a religion that is basically unknown to many, the question arises: How do Europeans in the former bulwark of Christendom actually do with the religious believes? Or more concrete asked on QUARTZ: How do their European State leaders do?

One might assume, many of them are atheists with belief in God fairly low across Europe, but the authors come to the conclusion: “In general Europe’s leaders remain a religious bunch.”

Of course, their appeal to the European State leaders to update “their religious status” on the website, is provided with a wink. But the question of the relationship between religion and political power should still be allowed in these days.

Photo credit: The Creation Michelangelo Vatican Museums Italy - Creative Commons by gnuckx